Comments on: Sahlins resigns from NAS as Chagnon entershttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/
Notes and Queries in AnthropologyThu, 08 Dec 2016 20:50:09 +0000hourly1By: irregulahttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-809311
Fri, 08 Mar 2013 21:25:09 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-809311Not again (and again and again!). The “facts about Chagnon are straighforward”? Re-read Chagnon (or for the first time, perhaps…). Sorry, but you’ll find none of the determinism Sahlins reads into the work. Sahlins misunderstood evolutionary theory in 1977, as he does still. Perhaps we can make allowances for his current behavior; after all, he was soundly and roundly criticized by evolutionary biologists back then, and wounded feelings can last a long time. But no one else has any excuse for the intellectural laziness required to go after Chagnon in this manner. It would be good for you to cite Chagnon’s “incompetent anthropology” directly instead of leaving it to his enemies to characterize it. As I said, lazy.
]]>By: Nicholashttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-806174
Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:49:37 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-806174What does it say about the national academy that they made Chagnon a member?
]]>By: John McCreeryhttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-805183
Sat, 02 Mar 2013 05:04:37 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-805183@justaguy

P.S. Just checking. You are aware, I expect, that the persistence of “Chinese tradition” on Taiwan is at least in part an artifact of Japanese colonial policy. Aiming to secure for themselves a reputation as enlightened colonizers, the Japanese emulated the British and opted for a form of indirect rule. A lot of what we think we know about Taiwan from 1895 to 1945 is taken from ethnological research conducted on behalf of the colonial government, which was interested in figuring out what local law and custom were. Anyway, as in Hong Kong, colonization resulted in the preservation of older social and cultural norms, partly as a matter of policy, and partly because, especially in Taiwan’s case, the island was politically isolated from wars and revolutions on the mainland. In my particular case, my fieldwork involved becoming the disciple of a Daoist magician (法师) whose WWII experience was serving in the Japanese military police in Manchuria. Yes, there was a lot we didn’t write about when we wrote up. (Not to worry, by the way, my master is dead, and his experience is the kind of thing that people on Taiwan now talk openly about.)

If you don’t mind me asking, where are you based? It would be good to get together and swap war stories from the field.

Two thoughts. First, have you read Susan Blum’s Lies that Bind? I would be interested in the reaction to it of someone who has also worked on the mainland. Second, I wonder what you are thinking of when you mention “the violence involved in establishing Taiwan as Chinese.” I suspect that you have in mind the mainlander takeover following WWII and the nastiness that accompanied consolidation of KMT control after Chiang, et al, fled the mainland. When I read those words, however, I find myself recalling that Chinese settlement in Taiwan began in earnest around the same time that the first English-speaking colonies in North America were being established and that Taiwan has its own history of warfare between the colonists and the aborigines as well as among the colonists themselves. Until the island’s pacification by the Japanese, after it was ceded to Japan in 1895, Taiwan was very much a frontier, Wild West, kind of place. A tropical island of peaceful farmers living together in bucolic harmony it was not.

]]>By: justaguyhttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-805153
Sat, 02 Mar 2013 04:06:56 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-805153@John
As someone doing research in China, I feel you. There too, the lines which you can’t cross are vague in a way that keeps people on their toes. While there is room to write about things critical of the Chinese state (until, of course, there isn’t which could be anytime between today and never), anyone writing on Xinjiang or Fa Lun Gong can expect to be banned. I picked a field site I though would be innocuous, but then some friends got into trouble with the State during one of the most politically sensitive times since 1989. Should I have tried to draw attention to their situation? Would it have helped them, or brought them more negative attention? They protected me by telling me to stay away, and I assumed they knew best. And yet… China is, of course, different from Taiwan in the 1960s as there are plenty of other voices criticizing the Chinese state.

I’m really glad you wrote this, because it fills in the human dimension of something I noticed in research on Taiwan in that era. When I started reading research on “Chinese culture” in Taiwan I was shocked at the seeming lack of awareness of the violence involved in establishing Taiwan as Chinese. But after talking to people who were there during the White Terror, it was obvious they knew, they just weren’t in a position to write about it. And I can see how the prospect of publishing something which would be more likely to bring retribution on your interlocutors than positive political change wouldn’t feel like a good idea. I don’t think there’s an easy answer to the question. So, yeah, I feel you.

But any meaningful conception of anthropological ethics requires us to be mindful of the possible consequences of the research we do.

Of course.

The next question is, What should we be mindful of? The rule “First, do no harm” comes to mind. I recall, however, the situation of those of us who did research in Taiwan in the 1960s, when Chiang Kai-Shek was still in power and the Republic of China was an ally of the USA in the Vietnam War. Taiwanese who spoke openly against the government could be arrested or “disappeared.” Foreign scholars could, at worst, be deported and have their careers ruined. One truly diabolical thing was that no one knew just where the line was drawn. The ambiguity of what would count as going to far was, in my estimation, a far more effective form of social control than drawing a hard and fast line that could have been openly challenged. To protect both anthropologists and the people whose lives they shared, we generally kept to safe topics. ritual, religion, kinship and marriage, and largely ignored the historical context in which we were working, with the Cold War turned hot in Vietnam and the memories of the 228 (February 28, 1947) incident in which supporters of Taiwan independence were massacred still raw enough for the police to go on special alert when that date came around. Were we right or wrong to do so? Were we mindful enough? Or too willing to conceal what we all knew when writing up our research?

“while I’ve always worked from a framework that assumes both universal human equality and good faith on the part of those with whom I agree and disagree alike”

Could we add “unless given good reason to think otherwise?”

Anthropologically speaking, the critical question here may be what counts as good faith. I have just begun reading a fascinating book by Susan Blum at Notre Dame. The book is titled Lies that Bind and analyses Chinese views of what counts as truth-telling. The frankness assumed by “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is regarded by educated urban Chinese as naive, a sign of idiocy in the original Greek sense, an innocent stupidity that ignores social context.

]]>By: DIscuss White Privilegehttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-805040
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 23:06:35 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-805040@Al: your comment points to a naïveté (at best) related to the lack of discussion of racism in (US) anthropology addressed in Ryan’s most recent post, and the reason I do not care to keep engaging Sergei’s comments. There is a reason I chose the word de facto, because what people claim to believe about racial equality and what their actions belie are not one in the same (e.g. de jure v. de facto racism/segregation; implicit bias and aversive racism). Simply saying one is rational and scientific, or saying one sees the Yanomami as equally human, does not mean that one is not also subject to racist implicit biases which will directly affect the questions one chooses to ask and the observations and conclusions one makes. Sorry, but there was never anything objective and scientific about Chagnon starting from the premise that the Yanomami were an evolutionary throwback.
]]>By: justaguyhttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-804998
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:07:49 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-804998“Translation: “To choose not to engage in politics is to engage in politics, since we’ve decided to change the definition of politics to include everything.” I see what you did there… 😉 But isn’t it immoral and unethical to essentially force others to engage in activities (like politics) unwillingly, even if you’re doing so through the coercion of semantic deconstruction and revisionism rather than by less subtle force?”

No, I’m not trying to make some theoretical point about power, I’m talking about the practical consequences of how we describe people. Let me give an example.

In the US today there is a public debate about same sex marriage in which claims about what is “natural” in terms of gender, sexuality and marriage are used to justify policies which have a concrete impact on the lived of sexual minorities. In this context, you can’t separate empiricism from politics, because empirical descriptions have political consequences.

So, if Zombie Margaret Mead was called to testify before congressional hearings on same sex marriage she could say,

“Throughout different cultures and historical periods, there is a wide variation between different gender ideals, forms of socially approved or stigmatized sexual practices and construction of kinship, especially marriage. Thus, while heterosexual marriage has been widely seen as normative in American culture, this doesn’t reflect anything fundamental about human nature and can change as our culture changes.”

or “Outside of modern Western societies, there has never been any societies with gay marriage understood in the same way as proposed by same sex marriage advocates.”

Are those descriptions empirical or political? I would suggested they’re both, because commonly held understandings of gender, sexuality and kinship have concrete consequences on the lives of sexual minorities. The consequences exist regardless if you want to recognize it, thus choosing to ignore them is not “avoiding politics”.

Not all empirical research has significant political consequences, and most people are content to ignore what anthropologists have to say most of the time. But any meaningful conception of anthropological ethics requires us to be mindful of the possible consequences of the research we do.

]]>By: Sergei Eseninhttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-804975
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 20:17:54 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-804975@DWP: If you’re not interested in further discussion I’ll merely conclude by saying that you’ve made unproven assumptions that scientific inquiry (Chagnon’s specifically, or perhaps _all_ of it?) has proceeded from a standpoint that some people are “less human” than others, while I’ve always worked from a framework that assumes both universal human equality and good faith on the part of those with whom I agree and disagree alike. There is a complete absence of evidence of bad faith here in the Chagnon affair–except _perhaps_ on the part of a few of Chagnon’s detractors, who’ve made serious allegations and painted with broad ideological brushes (despite having no evidence and no pretense of impartial rationalism).

But a word about the AAA race and ethics statements being “directly related to Nazi abuses of science for racist ends”–the West has been busy lobotomizing itself and madly scourging its own intellectual flesh for the last 50 years trying to punish itself for its deficiencies, when rather ironically anthropology has taught us that these deficiencies are not at all unique and isolated. The further and more serious irony is that progressive Western cultures were the first to become so self-aware of these deficiencies and make dedicated efforts to correct them–thanks in large part to a canon of Enlightenment rationalism and scientific inquiry into the humanities which is now often marginalized in the Western academy due to all that self-lobotomization and self-flagellation. The dangers of such unmooring from the foundations which made this self-awareness and introspection possible should be obvious–especially since this attitude has long since entered the popular culture from academia, weakening many of the very institutions which had made this enlightenment possible in the first place. The perfect truly has become the enemy of the good, and we’ll probably keep flagellelating ourselves until there’s nothing left on our deconstructed foundations and we just collapse.

But I digress. I find a recent quote by the historian John Lukacs occasioning the Pope’s resignation to be apropos of the decline of rationalism in the humanities departments of Western academia, and perhaps now Western culture at large: “Prelates [of the past] were blinded by the pursuit of worldly power. Six centuries later, the church’s challenges are utterly different: a decline in churchgoing and religious vocations in the West, and the rise of Islam, especially in Europe.

The modern age, the age of Europe, is over — and probably many of the ideas of the so-called Enlightenment, too. A hardly conscious but deeply felt spiritual hunger remains.”

Enlightenment rationalism, you’ll be sorely missed… I hope the “different ways of knowing” we’ll have will take us as far as fast, but I have good reason to doubt.

]]>By: Al Westhttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-804970
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 20:10:31 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-804970Chagnon could not have been more explicit in considering Yanomami people exemplary human beings. He was tactless, certainly, but he definitely considered Yanomami people to be human in the most basic and important sense. He said that they were sometimes violent, dirty, and ignorant – just like every other group of humans – and that if they did certain things more often, like snorting drugs or fighting feuds, it wasn’t because they lacked human mental features. He didn’t proceed from the assumption that Yanomami people are any less human than ‘us’, as you claim.
]]>By: Sergei Eseninhttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-804956
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:29:17 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-804956@justaguy: “How socially and politically marginalized groups are represented is already inherently political. Saying you need to ignore that fact in favor of empiricism isn’t apolitical, it’s being willfully ignorant of your politics.”

Translation: “To choose not to engage in politics is to engage in politics, since we’ve decided to change the definition of politics to include everything.” I see what you did there… 😉 But isn’t it immoral and unethical to essentially force others to engage in activities (like politics) unwillingly, even if you’re doing so through the coercion of semantic deconstruction and revisionism rather than by less subtle force? So, let’s see if this kind of thinking is rational and consistent: it’s immoral and unethical for someone to walk into a village with a bunch of stuff and say, “If you’re willing to let me stay here and do x, I will give you this stuff,” thereby giving people a choice whether or not to allow him in and to participate in an activity with him. But it’s moral and ethical to unilaterally deconstruct and revise formerly shared semantic understanding to force people who would otherwise choose not to engage in an activity with you, to engage in that activity with you. Hmmmm…

That doesn’t even touch upon the diminution of indigenous moral agency and personhood consequent from any attempt to protect them from the choice of whether to engage with people like Chagnon. Unless there’s a fraud or misrepresentation involved, such protectionism is rather imperial, despite the good intentions.

]]>By: DIscuss White Privilegehttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-804953
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:19:06 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-804953@Sergei: please find someone else to argue with. I am not going to spend my time arguing that ‘scientific’ inquiry which proceeds from the assumption that some human beings are de facto less human than others (and evolutionary throwbacks) is not unethical, or that it is amoral and apolitical and disinterested in anything but furthering scientific knowledge. And given that AAA race statements (and corollary ethics statements and expectations) are directly related to Nazi abuses of science for racist ends, the Mengele reference is not in fact a logical fallacy or throwaway argument strategy.
]]>By: docGhttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-804893
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 16:39:41 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-804893@Sergei

Excellent post, I agree with just about everything you wrote (though I must say I find Kant’s prose rather deadening). I’ll add that many other anthropologists are “guilty” of some of the same sins Chagnon is being vilified for. Here are some quotes, for example, from “The Evolution of Highland Papua New Guinea Societies”, By Daryl K. Feil:

So, if Chagnon’s characterization of the Yanoama as “fierce” caused them harm, then what of Feil’s references to endemic warfare and despotism in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea? And if we are to attack Feil, then sorry, but we’ll have to go after many others as well, since references to “endemic warfare” are themselves endemic in the anthropological literature.

There is something very very wrong with all these very personal and vicious attacks on Chagnon. It looks as though certain people who feel threatened by his ideas, or are simply jealous of all the attention he’s received, are looking for any stones they can find to cast in his direction.

That said, I must add that certain aspects of evolutionary biology, as endorsed by Chagnon, strike me as extremely naive, reflecting a fundamental ignorance of some of the most basic principles of Darwinian evolution. But that’s another story for another day. If the attacks were based strictly on his science and weren’t so personal, and so vicious, I would understand.

]]>By: seth edenbaumhttp://savageminds.org/2013/02/25/sahlins-resigns-from-nas-as-chagnon-enters/comment-page-2/#comment-804830
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:42:25 +0000http://savageminds.org/?p=9425#comment-804830justaguy,
“any definition of the political which can’t make a meaningful distinction between my failing a student, and the Sands Creek Massacre… isn’t very useful,”
If you start by assuming that the political begins in relations with outgroups you’re hardening your definition of yourself and your “peers”. If you begin with the assumption that politics begins the moment you engage with anyone then you’re reminding yourself that you’re subject to being judged as you’re willing to judge others. Assumptions make you sloppy. DeLong attacked William Safire repeatedly and viciously but wrote a short memorial to Jeane Kirkpatrick because she was a friend of the family. As matter of loyalty it’s human but to defend making the distinction as a matter of an objective knowledge of history is something else. “Of course I’m a feminist… Honey could you get me another beer!” DeLong in his public persona in own imagination has no foibles.

What’s the difference between a medical researcher and at general practitioner, between someone who works with data points abstracted from people and someone who interacts with them and has to respond to questions? My father didn’t allow his students to address him by his first name. Dr., Professor, Mr., that didn’t matter. And they could request to be addressed as Mr Miss or Ms or Mrs. But he made clear he wasn’t their friend: friends can’t give you an F. That wasn’t only an acknowledgement of his authority over his students but of their autonomy and of human frailty since friendship would weaken his judgement. That’s the importance if the rule of law. Reason says “we’re all in this together”; pessimism says power corrupts. But pessimism and irony are the roots of comedy. Which is why Jon Stewart is so important and why Bassem Youssef is even more so. And it makes sense that Youssef’s started out as a heart surgeon and not a cancer researcher. I’m sure the scalpel’s slipped one or twice. it happens.